Delhi Nagarik Sahakari Bank: HC stays election results

Delhi High Court has stayed the election result of Delhi Nagarik Sahakari Bank till 8th of December 2017. The court gave this verdict while considering petitions filed by the members of the bank.

It bears recall that the election of Delhi Nagrik Sahakari Bank (DNSB) was held on 3rd December 2017 for which about 200 nominations were filed on 17th November and scrutiny and withdrawal was done on 20th November and 21st November. About 4,500 voters cast their votes in the election.

Ironically, a few members of the bank earlier counted as voters by the Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS) had their names removed just a day before the nomination i.e. 16th November 2017.

In this case, the agenda notice was published on September 11 on the notice board and the website of the bank mentioned 14,637 eligible voters but the Registrar of Cooperative Societies had removed 1,127 voters from the list a day before the nomination. This led to members knocking at the door of the high court.

In his statement, the RCS said the names of voters are cut because of criminal cases pending against several voters, wrong affidavits, dual membership and sundry other issues.

As per Delhi Cooperative Societies Rules, 2007, Clause 3 of Schedule II, the list of members as it stood on thirty days before the date fixed for inviting nominations and publishing copies of the said list by affixing them upon the Notice Board at the Head Office of the Cooperative Society and its branches, if any, not less than ten days prior to the date fixed for inviting nominations.Once the list of members is published , there will be no amendment in the list, according to law.

Taking the issue with storm several members whom name was cut from the list of eligible voters has knocked the door of Delhi High Court.

While talking to this correspondent on the phone, Returning Officer Kaushal Kishore refused to answer the questions from IC but said the Delhi High Court has stayed the election result till the 8th December, 2017.

On the contrary, while talking to this correspondent Piyush Mittal, one of the petitioners said “If the RCS wanted to cut the names of voters why they had released the list of 14,637 eligible voters on 11 September 2017 in the first place. Why these names were not removed at that time, he asked”.

“The voters whose names were removed from the list at the last moment were not published on the 17th November 2017. The Delhi State Cooperative Act clause 3 of Schedule II says the list of members for election of a cooperative society should be published 30 days before the nomination. The names therefore were cut in pre-planned manner”, Mittal added.

The two panels including Dinesh Kumar the son of the outgoing Chairman Jai Bhagwan and Deepak Bansal the son of the outgoing Vice-Chairman M.K.Bansal were in the race. Both were fighting for the post of Chairman.

Sources say, the election results are yet to be announced but it is being confirmed that the outgoing chairman Jai Bhagwan’s son Dinesh Kumar has received more than 2,500 votes while his revival Deepak Bansal has got only 1500 votes.